


you could ruin me, dear (if only you asked)

by Tator



Series: davenzi drabbles [10]
Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-12 23:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20572748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tator/pseuds/Tator
Summary: David spent the entire night watching the door and pretending he wasn’t, an entire night where he held a lukewarm beer in one hand and listened to his peers tell jokes and laugh with only one ear. The other was listening to the chime above the gallery’s door, hearing if it was going to open. It didn’t. Matteo never showed, and David spent the night pretending he wasn’t mad.or the one where matteo needs to apologize





	you could ruin me, dear (if only you asked)

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt:  
I love angst but I always see david saying something/being in the wrong and apologising to matteo, could you write something the other way round?
> 
> the original posts are [here](https://bagels-and-seagulls.tumblr.com/post/186690076863/i-love-angst-but-i-always-see-david-saying) and [here](https://bagels-and-seagulls.tumblr.com/post/186981541848/part-2-to-the-matteo-apologizing-ask-please-id)

David spent the entire night watching the door and pretending he wasn’t, an entire night where he held a lukewarm beer in one hand and listened to his peers tell jokes and laugh with only one ear. The other was listening to the chime above the gallery’s door, hearing if it was going to open. It didn’t. Matteo never showed, and David spent the night pretending he wasn’t mad.

“Matteo’s here,” Laura told him with a small smile and a quiet voice. The combination she used when she knew she was telling him news he didn’t want to hear. He always hated that voice.

“So?” David scoffed and turned back to his sketchbook. He stayed at her apartment for the night. He told himself it was because it was closer to the gallery, an easy place to rest after a long night of putting on a show he didn’t always have the energy to make it through the encore of. It had nothing to do with the fact that there was a growling volcano in the pit of his stomach that started to spew over at the thought of unread text messages and phone calls that went straight to voicemail.

Laura rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “So, stop moping around my house, and go talk to him.”

“I thought you said this would always be my home.”

“I meant it in a more metaphorical way,” Laura said, waving her hand in front of her face. “Go talk to your boyfriend,” she added as she walked out the room.

David sighed and ran his hands through his hair before armored himself to go to the front door, to open it, to see what is on the other side. He practically threw the door wide but didn’t open it enough to let the person on the other side know they were welcome to come in. “What are you doing here?” he asked. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms, putting the physical boundary in front of him while the steeliness in his voice put up an emotional one.

Matteo was looking at the floor, with his hands shoved into his pockets and his shoulder up towards his ears. “I, um, wanted to talk. To you.”

“Here I am,” David said with no light malice. Not even Matteo’s pink ears and swollen bottom lip could soften up the shell he built around himself overnight.

Matteo looked up at him briefly and then at the space behind him, like he was going to ask to come in but thought better of it. “I-,” Matteo dropped his head back low. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” David asked because he wanted to be mean, because spite had been sitting somewhere high on his spine and wanted to make itself known, because he never really did learn how to have a conversation with the lid of his anger on tight.

“That I didn’t- I mean, couldn’t,” Matteo scrubbed at his eyes. “I knew the show opening was important to you, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t there.”

David stared, waiting for him to continue, waiting for some sort of explanation.

“It looked like it was fun,” Matteo added, and David cocked his head. “The show,” Matteo clarified, looking up at David quickly, like it was a clarification at all. “You looked good.”

David pursed his lips, and something in him felt like it was fizzling out. “You saw. You _came_,” he said simply.

“I’m sorry,” Matteo says again and leans backwards slightly.

“Matteo, I don’t-“ He shook his head. “Why didn’t you come in?”

Matteo just shrugged and fixed his hair until there was more in front of his face. David saw scratch marks down his wrist. “I liked the one with all the buildings the best. The, uh, the _collage_.”

David tried to ignore the small smile that was pulling at his lips and suddenly felt incredibly tired at the whole thing. He had quite gotten used to sleeping next to someone at night.

“I know that I- that I messed up, and I’m sorry,” Matteo said again when he wasn’t getting a reaction out of David.

“I know.”

“Will you come home?” Matteo asked in the smallest voice David thinks he ever heard.

Part of him wanted to say yes, wanted to agree immediately and wipe the sadness right out of Matteo’s very soul, but there was still something itching David’s lungs that held him back. “I’m still kind of upset about-“ he waved his hand in explanation.

“Right,” Matteo nodded, like that’s what he was expecting. “Right, yeah, of course. Okay.”

He went to turn away, and David grabbed his arm to stop him. He watched as Matteo practically sagged into the floor at the contact. “I’ll be back after dinner. We’ll talk?”

“Okay.”

It was dark by the time he went back home. It was dark, and he knew that dinner had happened hours ago at this point. But he ended up wondering around the city for an hour that turned into three, and he couldn’t force his feet to turn back to where his heart had been screaming to go to. 

He entered the apartment quietly, thinking that it was late enough that Matteo would be asleep and they could hold off on this conversation for later, for tomorrow, and David could just curl up behind him, watching him breathe, and pretend everything was okay. But he knew that wouldn’t happen. He knew that Matteo would be awake and waiting for him because David promised to come home tonight, and Matteo always waited up for him. David wondered how long he waited last night. He hated that part of him hoped it was the entire time. 

David found him in the kitchen, scrubbing at dishes that already looked clean with water that was steaming up the sink. Matteo’s hands were red and raw, and David rushed over to turn the sink off. “Hey, you shouldn’t have the water that hot,” he said as he pulled the plate out of Matteo’s hands and put it off to the side. 

Matteo looked startled, like he didn’t think that any of this was real, that maybe he had given up hope that David was coming home tonight at all. “Sorry,” he said quietly and turned to grab the plate back and put it away. He put his hands on the counter and hung his head low between his shoulders, and David was just so incredibly tired that he almost said he wanted to forget about this whole thing, that Matteo apologized and it was good enough. But another part still demanded answers, still wanted to be a little angry and spit a little bit of acid out to see if Matteo would burn or fizzle. 

“Jonas texted me,” he said as he leaned on the counter next to Matteo. “He said that the show was sick. I didn’t know he went.” 

“Sorry,” Matteo repeated, and David felt like he had deja vu. 

“I just- what happened, Matteo? You and Jonas went?” He asked. “I feel like I’m the last one to know what’s going on.” 

“I-” Matteo started and then stopped. He looked down into the sink where there were still some suds oozing down the sides. David felt like screaming. “I told Jonas that I was nervous, so he snuck us in that afternoon. Said that maybe if I saw everything before I wouldn’t be nervous anymore. I’m sorry.” 

That answer sent David reeling, and he didn’t even know where to start with it. He was left with more things to wonder about than answers and filling in a timeline with question marks and unknown amount of characters. “Why- Why were you nervous?” He started at. 

Matteo looked over at him from the corner of his eye. He looked him up and down and landed on his shoes, and David knew that he was thinking that he was going to go away again, that even if he pulled his soul out of his chest and waved it out for David to see that David was still going to walk out the door at the end of it, leaving him trying to shove his heart back down his throat all by himself. David slipped off his jacket and placed it on the counter purposefully, slowly. Matteo watched him. 

“I don’t-” He looked away, and David felt himself leaning in closer. “I don’t know about this art stuff. I didn’t want your friends to- I didn’t want to look dumb or something.” 

“You’re not dumb,” David said on instinct, on muscle memory. 

Matteo shook his head. “I didn’t know the word for collage. How was I supposed to-” He stopped himself. David thinks he could fill in the blanks himself. 

“Is that why you didn’t come in last night?” 

“I’m sorry,” Matteo responded, and David thinks back to when Laura had sat him down when he was thirteen and told him to stop apologizing for everything, that the whole world wasn’t his responsibility, that he wasn’t letting people down be existing. He thinks that no one has explained that to Matteo before. 

“Why?” He asks again, pushing his luck on how much Matteo would admit to tonight. 

Matteo stood there for another minute. David pushed himself closer to his side, and Matteo closed his eyes after feeling David’s heat through his shirt sleeve. “You looked happy,” he whispered so quietly that David wonders if he made it up. “I didn’t want to ruin it.” 

“Oh, _Matteo_,” David pulls him close, tucks him into his side, and Matteo grips at him so tight that it almost hurts to breathe. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and David doesn’t want to hear him say it again. 

“You don’t ruin anything, Matteo. Not a damn thing.”


End file.
